Enhancements are a big part of the game and the main way the player turns fights vs AI ships in their favor. They can more than double your damage or defensive power, but there's no comprehensive guide on this facet yet, and it's awfully complicated, so I figured I'd write one, admittedly partly for learning more about it myself.

There are permanent, item-bound enhancements with items (permanent as long as you don't remove them with a defective weapon rom, decayed etherium field crystal or barrel of degenerating nanos / meteorsteel dust or the item gets damaged or destroyed).

In v1.6, you can enhance normal energy weapons and shields with longzhu spheres only up to +20%.

It's also possible to enhance your drive with a longzhu sphere.

I was able to enhance my Dvalin Ion9 weapon that came with +60% with a longzhu sphere to +70%, probably a bug.

Similarly, normal shields can be enhanced with molbidium field crystals only up to +30%. Field crystals only work on level VII-XII shields.

Damaged shields and energy weapons can be repaired with longzhu spheres. You can earn easy money by selling lots of positron cannons this way.

Normal shields can be enhanced by using mnemonic cubes with an installed heisenmachines quantum cpu: The ShieldPower v3.1.8 algorithm cube adds +20% hit points for shields level IV-IX without affecting power draw, the ShieldEfficiency v1.2.5 algorithm cube will decrease power draw of shields level IV-IX to 80%.

Normal lower level (I-VI) shields can also be enhanced by shield enhancement ROMs, they add +20% hit points. Hiro's shield optimizer (also a ROM) adds +50% for I-VI shields, you get one for rescuing Katami during the battle arena missions.

You can enhance shields up to +150% with diamond field crystals in 10% increments, they're very rare to find, expensive when already identified or ordered and only 1 can be ordered at every corporate trading station.

Consumables specific to the damage type can be used to repair damaged weapons or further enhance weapons up to +150% in 10% increments (laser amplifier, kinetic upgrade, hexagene booster, particle source upgrade, tritium injector, ion power capacitor). At corporate trading stations, you can usually order 3 laser amplifiers, hexagene boosters, particle source upgrades or tritium injectors, but you can only ever order 1 ion power capacitor or 1 kinetic upgrade. There are no consumables to enhance positron, plasma or antimatter weapons in general, but you can use longzhu spheres for +20% on positron weapons.

A weapon enhancement ROM increases rate of fire of installed, unenhanced, active primary weapon of any level by 1/4. Due to rounding, some weapons get a larger bonus, typically 1/3. It also repairs an installed, damaged, active primary weapon.

Normal armor can be enhanced with a very broad selection of barrels. For simple hitpoint enhancements, there are barrels of carbon-weaver nanos for +50% at tech level I-III, +30% at level IV-V and +10% at level VI; and also barrels of orthosteel nanos for +50% at level VII-X.

Also, you can enhance your reactor with heliotrope fuel cylinders if you get lucky. Each one you use has a small chance (which is?), they're usable starting from the nova-100 reactor up to the koshiba-500 reactor.

There are permanent, item-bound enhancements with the Domina power ingenuity (7, tier 4). They only work on normal, unenhanced, installed equipment. Ingenuity first picks the item type, then a random undamaged unenhanced item from that selection, if there is any:

40% chance to enhance an armor segment, 65% to enhance its hit points by +50%, 35% to enhance its hit points by +20%.

25% chance to enhance the shield, 65% for +20%, 5% for +40% and 30% for +20% efficiency.

15% chance to enhance a weapon, 85% for +20%, 15% for +40% damage

10% chance to enhance reactor or drive. Reactor by +20% maximum power output, fuel capacity and also +20% fuel efficiency. Drive with +10% to top speed and thrust bonus (or +20% thrust bonus as in wiki?). For example, you can reach 0.25c with the titan 440 fusion drive, 0.28c with the enhanced version; 0.3c with the pteracnium megadrive, 0.33c with the enhanced version.

You can use specific enhancing devices that need to be installed and enabled, constantly drawing power and taking up a device slot, to work, but they are capable of enhancing all appropriate installed weapons at once:

There are those specific to the damage type done: laser collimator, cannon accelerator, particle accelerator. They add +50% damage on top of any other direct weapon enhancements, except for the laser collimator, which adds +75%. There are no enhancers for blast, ion, positron, plasma or antimatter weapons in general, but in the official Corporate Command add-on, there is also the lithium booster for +50% thermo damage and the tesla enhancer, which increases the damage ion weapons deal to shields, this may depend on the level of the shield it hits. Those enhancers work for primary and side-mounted weapons, but not for missile or MAG launchers

You can use enhancing devices specific to the weapon manufacturer: makayev weapon enhancer, rasiermesser weapon enhancer, bushido weapon enhancer. They add +75% damage to their supported weapons; the makayev one only to blast weapons, the rasiermesser one to kinetic and blast weapons, the bushido one to energy weapons.

Then there's the high-speed howitzer loader, which increases fire rate by 3/7, about 42.8%. Mark V howitzers and side-mounted mark V howitzers should get 50% due to rounding. Works on top of the damage boost from a lithium booster for the thermo type howitzers.

Side-mounted weapons can be enhanced by ingenuity and active enhancing devices, but not by consumables.

Finally, there is the university in the big arcology surrounding Incandescent (the habitable planet circling St. Katherine's star), where another project is pursued every game by the school of engineering. They can enhance your drive by 10%, reactor by 20%, again affecting maximum fuel capacity, maximum power output and fuel to power conversion ratio, or they can enhance your shield with a 2/11 (18,18%) chance for +20% hit points, a 2/11 chance for +20% efficiency, and a 1/11 chance each for +10% HP, +30% HP, +40% HP, laser, kinetic, particle and blast resistance.

Last edited by Brzelius on Mon Oct 19, 2015 7:06 pm, edited 13 times in total.

- The blast enhancing consumable is the hexagene booster.
- Kinetic and ion enhancers are rare and can only be ordered one at a time. The others are uncommon and can be ordered 3 at a time. I created a ticket to end this discrepancy though.
- I believe Longzhu spheres only enhance unenhanced items and only to 20%.
- Field crystals only work on level 7-12 shields.
- ShieldPower v3.1.8 cubes work on level 4-9 shields and add 20% if they're unenhanced.
- The efficient enhancement reduces power use by 20%.
- Shield enhancement ROMs work on level 1-6 shields and add 20% if they're unenhanced. Hiro's shield optimizer is the same except that it adds 50%. You can get one for rescuing Katami during the Battle Arena missions, but they (very rarely) appear in other places.
- Weapon enhancement ROMs increase the rate of fire of any unenhanced weapon by 1/4. Due to rounding, some weapons get a larger bonus, typically 1/3.
- Laser collimator and Makayev, Rassiermesser, and Bushido enhancers add 75%. Makayev only works for blast, Rassiermesser for kinetic and blast, Bushido for energy weapons.
- Weapon boosting devices work with side-mounted weapons, but not launchers.
- Howitzer loader increases fire rate by 3/7, about 42%. This is exact for all the weapons in the game it works with, but mod weapons could be affected by rounding.
- The Tesla enhancer adds bonus shield damage. This may depend on the level of the shield it hits. This and the lithium booster are Corporate Command only.
- I don't believe drives improve turning.
- Enhanced reactors can store 20% more fuel and produce 20% more power for the same amount of fuel (they're more efficient).
- Ingenuity first picks the item type: 10% nothing, 40% armor, 25% shields, 15% weapons, 10% reactor or drive. Then it picks a random unenhanced undamaged installed item of that type, if any. Then it adds an enhancement. Armor has a 35% chance of +20% and 65% chance of +50%. Shields have 65% chance of +20%, 5% chance of +40%, and 30% chance of +efficient. Weapons have 85% chance of +20% and 15% chance of +40%.

Thanks, edited my post with your information. I definitely had some corporate trading stations though that would only let me order one single tritium injector. I ordered diamond field crystals at those.

- The +efficient enhancement has the same effect, -20% power use, regardless of how you get it.
- Antimatter weapons are not energy weapons, so Longzhu spheres have no effect (except for recharging the Qianlong, but that's not an enhancement).
- The school of engineering at St. Katherine's can have shields, reactors, or drives as their project. They can repair or enhance an installed device of that type up to level 7. If it's a shield there's a 2/11 chance for each of +20% and +efficient and a 1/11 chance of each of +10%, +30%, +40%, and damage resistance to one of laser, kinetic, particle, and blast.

There are no mods listed though except Corporate Command and The Stars of the Pilgrim Soundtrack for the +140% Ares Plasma Archcannon and only Corporate Command for the +170% side-mounted howitzer and +375% Thorin 300. Being able to use other mods would defeat the purpose of those high score lists.

JohnBWatson wrote:Didn't early versions of CC allow for absurd levels of weapon enhancement?

They did. The pics are probably from older versions.

Thermo weapons are probably the most enhancable weapons in the game right now....the most enhanced one possible in CC I can think of would be the Mark V or VII howitzer, enhanced with 15 tritium boosters (+150%), plus a lithium booster (+50%), plus a makayev enhancer (+75%), plus a high speed howitzer loader ( + ~40% to DPS, not per hit). This gets close to the absolute maximum you can enhance anything (don't know if it's changed, but there was a hard cap at around +350-400% or so)

Mischievous local moderator. Usually a girl, occasionally undefinable, sometimes entertaining.

That's pretty much what I used in my recent playthrough, except for having a dual fusionfire howitzer with +150% and not using Makayev enhancer. Is the fusionfire or dual fusionfire no Makayev design, because you're only mentioning mark V and VII?

During time of CC's beta, enhancement hexcodes were changed, it is was possible to raise damage bonus all the way to 2^16-1. There may have been bugs with maxHPBonus and related functions at the time too. Now, the bugs have been fixed, and the function that can add HP bonus cannot add more than +1000%.

During the CC succession, someone got an omni thermo cannon with damage bonus in the hundreds and a thermo shell nanofac. Someone called it the demon weapon.

Download and Play in 1.8 Beta...Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
Download and Play in 1.7...Star Castle Arcade: Relive classic arcade gaming in a new Transcendence adventure!Playership Drones v7 (Beta): (OUTDATED!) Acquire and command almost any ship in Stars of the Pilgrim or Eternity Port.
Work in progress... Playership Drones v8: Work just started! Details to come later...